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More people in Iran search Google for information about “distributed generation” than any other nation in the world, according to Google Insights for Search. Considering that Iran seems to be on the brink of a new war after nearly every meal, it is not surprising that Iranians would have an interest in distributed energy generation. Say what you will about the smart grid, the strongest grid may be no grid at all. The future will be distributed and security is perhaps the primary reason why. In September, a single utility worker knocked out power for more than 2.7 million customers served by six different utilities by tripping a 500 kilovolt (kV) transmission line at an Arizona substation. It could have been worse. At several critical nodes of the electric power grid, the loss of high-voltage transformers could trigger prolonged multi-state power outages. Replacement transformers could take as long as two years to build and deploy, according to the EPRI’s Infrastructure Security Initiative. Unlike the electric power grid, distributed generation is immune from cascading outages or systemic collapse. Click headline to read more--
EFA has secured a prime location at the intersection of three eco-systems: rainforest, mangrove and beach, just outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone, to build a Biodiversity Conservation and Renewable Energy Learning Centre. By the end of 2011 and with the support of local, regional and international partners, the Learning Centre will be established in order to promote learning about biodiversity conservation and renewable energy in West Africa. The facility will be an epicentre for environmental protection and management in region. With Climate Change and related environmental issues becoming more prominent in the agendas of governments and their partners, the need for information dissemination to all sectors of society is more important now than ever before. This, as well as evidence of the growing pressure on the Upper Guinea Forest (UGF) and natural resources in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, inspired EFA to create a focal point for conservation education and environmental awareness. Environmental, economic and social issues affecting the Upper Guinean Forest including all of the region’s protected areas, will be showcased in the centre using interactive displays. Click headline to read more--
A new study by Michelle T. H. van Vliet, John R. Yearsley, Fulco Ludwig, Stefan Vögele, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, and Pavel Kabat released in Nature Climate Change finds that climate change will impact the 91% of US and 78% of European power that is produced by thermal power plants. In the near future, power potential is expected to be reduced from 4 to 16%, with the possibility of a complete system collapse tripling or more. Click headline to read more and access hot link to the report--
Women in the Information and Communications Technology have expressed the need to reduce male dominance in the industry and maintain a 50-50 balance, writes DAYO OKETOLA. Globally, the Information and Communications Technology industry is believed to be dominated by men. This, like other gender sensitive issues, has begun to elicit sympathy from stakeholders, who seem to see the compelling need to address the trend. Expectedly, the World Bank and the United Nations, which emphasise the need to harness ICT for women and girls development, have declared support for initiatives that would address gender imbalance in ICT. The International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency, subsequently responded by coming up with the ‘Girls in ICT Day’ with the aim of creating a global environment that will empower and encourage girls and young women to consider ICT careers. Click headline to read more--
This report addresses the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization’s desire to minimize the learning time required to understand the implications of smart-grid concepts so APEC members can advance their thinking in a timely manner and advance strategies regarding smart approaches that can help meet their environmental-sustainability and energy-efficiency policy goals. As significant investments are needed to grow and maintain the electricity infrastructure, consideration needs to be given to how information and communications technologies can be applied to electricity infrastructure decisions that not only meet traditional needs for basic service and reliability, but also provide the flexibility for a changing the mix of generation sources with sensitivity to environmental and societal impacts. Click headline to access hot link to the report--
Google is backing it. So is Warren Buffett, America’s most-watched investor. GE, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers, is too. Each of these corporate icons is placing big bets and hundreds of millions of dollars on a future powered by wind and solar power. Apple just joined them, announcing plans to power its main U.S. data center in Maiden, North Carolina, entirely with renewable energy by the end of this year. So why – yet again – are pundits making dire warnings about prospects for renewable energy? The answer is that the clean tech industry is at a critical crossroads. Click headline to read more--
Hill Farm, Tallentire, is squeezed between two of Britain’s loveliest landscapes, the Lake District National Park and the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), just at the point where they most nearly touch each other. Yet work will begin there next month on erecting six 300ft wind turbines. Local planners had rejected the wind farm because of its “harmful effect on the landscape”, only to be overruled earlier this year by the Government’s Planning Inspectorate. The men from Whitehall agreed that the turbines would “reduce the sense of wildness and remoteness” of both specially protected areas and admitted that the they would make only a “small” energy contribution. But they still ruled that this outweighed the spoiled views. The development is just one among many that show, as the Campaign to Protect Rural England says, that wind farms “are increasingly being directed towards more remote, tranquil areas”. Political concern, fuelled by this trend, came to a head this week when George Osborne proposed action against them. Click headline to read more--
The first conference in Africa solely focused on off-grid renewable energy technologies will be held in Accra in October this year with a special look at applications in rural communities of developing countries. Off-grid technology is extremely important throughout Africa with many of the continent?s inhabitants without access to the grid. Several global experts, technologists and organisations like the Director General of International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) and several African Energy Ministers are expected to attend the conference. The event, jointly organised by the Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE), the Economic Community of West Africa States, Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency and IRENA, is an official contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. The conference will be a crucial opportunity to learn about the current status of rural electrification in Africa and developing countries, discuss the main bottlenecks to a successful scale up of off-grid renewable energies, highlight successful instruments and policies from around the world, and share knowledge about innovative financing solutions, technologies and the latest research, says the Alliance for Rural Electrification. Click headline to read more--
South Africa is a country with a predominantly coal-fired electricity system and ever-growing energy needs. Use of renewable energy resources for electricity generation is currently almost non-existent, but the potential is great. At COP17, the South African Government launched the South Africa Renewables Initiative (SARi) and the SARi International Partnership. They aim to develop financing arrangements that enable development of a critical mass of renewable energy sources in South Africa. In this Inside Story, Murray Ward explores some of the challenges faced by the Initiative, in particular relating to financing the incremental costs of renewables in a context of political and social opposition to rising energy prices. South Africa is heralding a commitment to meet both its future energy needs and its climate change objectives. But the country is also clearly signalling its need for help from the international community to achieve these twin objectives. The Inside Story describes the first steps of South Africa’s nascent energy transition, and draws out some key lessons for other countries. Click headline to read more--
Fuel cell maker Bloom Energy is raising another $150 million at a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion, according to DowJones VentureWire. If closed, Bloom Energy will have raised $800 million over its 11-year lifetime and venture investors include New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins, DAG Ventures and GSV Capital. The fund raising is being marketed by Advanced Equities. Advanced Equities has also marketed investments in Fisker Automotive, which was also backed by venture investors Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates. Advanced Equities targets investments from groups of high net worth individuals. Click headline to read more--
Solar startup Konarka’s bankruptcy, announced last week, wasn’t just the latest case of the solar industry being hit by the dropping cost of silicon, and cheap modules and panels from China. The company’s technology was just weak and “could not compete on cost, efficiency, or lifetime,” says Lux Research.Lux Research says for at least three years it’s given Konarka a “strong caution” rating for its technology that was “ten times higher cost, and ten times lower efficiency and lifetime compared to alternative solar technologies.” More than technology development, Konarka’s skill was in fund raising, says Lux Research, and its “underlying technology was never market ready.” Lux writes: Click headline to read more--
A solar energy plane landed in Morocco on Tuesday, completing the world's first intercontinental flight powered by the sun to show the potential for renewable-energy air travel. The Solar Impulse took off from Madrid at 0322 GMT on Tuesday and landed at Rabat's International airport after a 19-hour flight. Shortly before Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard landed in Rabat's airport, the project co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg said the aircraft has proved its sustainability. "The aircraft can now fly day and night. It's quite a show ... It's a technology we can trust," he told reporters. Piccard descended from the plane, smiling as he was greeted by Borshberg and Mustafa Bakkoury, the head of Morocco's solar energy agency. Click headline to read more--
The Federal Government has restated its commitment to promote activities that can help in creating an enabling environment for faster Information and Communication technology roll-out in Nigeria. The Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said government would ensure accelerated roll-out of a robust cost effective ICT infrastructure to increase access of Nigerians to ICTs. Speaking during a visit to the ministry by the House Representatives Committee on Communication, as part of its oversight function in Abuja recently, the minister listed the priorities of the FG to include infrastructure provision, inclusive development, job creation, e-Government and sustaining a sound regulatory environment for ICTs to thrive in Nigeria. On the poor quality of service for which some operators were recently sanction for, the minister said the issue of poor quality of service by telecoms operators would soon be a thing of the past. She said the ministry was working hard to improve the operating environment and en-sure that issues of inadequate number of base stations, arbitrary cost and lengthy process of right of way acquisition, interruptions to laying cables, wilful and accidental damage to fibre optic cables and base stations, and other such challenges being faced by the operators are resolved in order to ensure improved services. Click headline to read more--
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With the advent of renewable energy technology, such as wind turbines and solar photovoltaics, the public and quasi-public agencies that operate the U.S. interconnected power grid look for optimal ways to integrate traditional energy sources with new renewable energy sources. Power grid operators must decide how and when to switch on coal or gas back-up systems when wind or solar energy production drops in local areas. These decisions are made to provide continuity in the supply of electricity at lower costs. Two UC Davis professors were recently awarded grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to research this coordination problem. Mathematicians refer to this coordination issue as the “electric power dispatch problem,” explained Roger J-B Wets, a professor in the UC Davis department of mathematics, and one of the researchers working on the project. Wets is widely recognized as a pioneer in a branch of mathematics known as “variational analysis,” and has worked on mathematical techniques which are being applied to the current problem for many years. When applied to real situations involving significant levels of uncertainty, the application becomes extremely complex. Click headline to read more--
Can a humble system of gravel and a heat pump provide a breakthrough for utility-scale energy storage? British startup Isentropicthinks so, and this week announced that they’ve raised $22 million in project funding and an equity investment from the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a collaboration between the U.K. government and companies in the energy industry. I covered Isentropic back in 2009, and back then the company was looking for a $5 million Series B round. The five-year-old company, previously raised a Series A round from Credit Suisse Securities Europe and won a £250,000 ($380,112) research grant from The Carbon Trust. The innovation behind Isentropic’s idea is an advanced heat pump connected to a super simple, low cost energy storage design. Heat pumps are basically engines that can work in reverse and Isentropic’s device can store and release energy when needed. Founders and engineers Jon Howes and James Macnaghten developed the design of the heat pump a decade ago, and then brought on Mark Wagner as chairman to help with business direction. Click headline to read more--
Global investment in renewable energy reached a record of $257 billion last year, with solar attracting more than half the total spending, according to a U.N. report released Monday. Investment in solar energy surged to $147 billion in 2011, a year-on-year increase of 52 percent thanks to strong demand for rooftop photovoltaic installations in Germany, Italy, China and Britain. Large-scale solar thermal installations in Spain and the United States also contributed to growth during a fiercely competitive year for the solar industry. Several large American and German manufacturers fell victim to price pressure from Chinese rivals that helped to halve the cost of photovoltaic modules in 2011. Clik headline to read more--
Electric energy storage systems are crucial for the further development and transformation of a range of sectors including renewable energy, automotive, grid stabilization, smart grid, back-up power and portable devices. Big scale, reliable and durable electric energy storage technologies will enhance the usage and commercial attractiveness of intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. Market Penetration and Road mapping research by Frost and Sullivan finds that electric energy storage systems are inscribed in the development strategies of intermittent renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) developers, grid operators and utility companies. Click headline to read more--
If implemented, plans for massive cuts in support for onshore wind power would be a major setback for economic recovery and push up the costs of modernising our electricity system ("Osborne in bid to slash spending on windfarms", News). As the costs of renewable power continue to fall, it is right that the support they receive does, too, and the deal struck by Chris Huhne with David Cameron to cut that by 10% was justified. Yet onshore wind is the lowest-cost renewable technology, so slashing its support by 25% would seriously jeopardise new projects, including community-owned initiatives. The Environmental Audit Committee called on the government to show leadership on the green economy, in the same week that it emerged that William Hague had written to the prime minister to say exactly the same thing. We're now seeing repeated calls from inside government and from business to stop the Treasury blocking green growth and provide policy certainty for the development of the renewable energy sector. Click headline to read more--
Broken Hill will host one half of the largest solar energy project in the southern hemisphere, it was announced today. The $450 million project will have an ultimate output of 159 megawatts, enough to power 33,000 homes, and will be constructed across two sites; Broken Hill and Nyngan. The Broken Hill site will consist of nearly a million solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) panels and will be built to the west of the city. Construction is hoped to begin in 2014 and is expected to bring 150 jobs to Broken Hill and a further 300 to Nyngan. The solar farm is expected to be operating by 2015 and is a joint venture between the Federal and State Governments and Australian energy company AGL. Click headline to read more--
There’s been a series of Cleanweb Hackathons in recent months, where developers spend a weekend building web and mobile apps out of energy, water and sustainability data. But here’s a new one with a twist kicking off this weekend: a solar-focused Cleanweb Hackathon, coordinated by solar web startup Sungevity. The event will take place at Sungevity’s headquarters in Jack London Square in Oakland, and will start at 5:30 PT, and run until Sunday evening. The hackers will spend 48 hours, supplied with pizza and Redbull, to build solar apps, and the best solar apps will win prizes at the end of the weekend. More info can be found here. Click headline to read more and access hot links--
New York City has big plans to make a name for itself in the sustainable energy sector: It wants to become a solar energy hub and export the solar market analysis tools it is developing throughout the world. The project is a collaborative effort between IBM and City University of New York's CUNY Ventures, a university Economic Development organization. The primary goal is to support solar adoption by coming up with the capability to analyze and evaluate key solar market indicators that can lead to more cost-competitive solar systems development. The joint effort is an element of 'Solar Market Analytics, Roadmapping and Tracking NY' (SMART NY), an innovative project partially supported by DOE's Rooftop Solar Challenge. The Solar Challenge is part of a DOE initiative to make solar cost-competitive with other energy sources by the end of the decade. Click headline to read more--
Sinking revenues and shrinking policy support may be causing a bit of a haze on the renewable energy horizon, but there's plenty of sunshine trying to peek through if you look hard enough. There’s no doubt that everything from solar to biofuels are under assault from legislative halls to the comment boards. And while there are still gains being made, they’re not always evident. As the renewable energy industry faces another tumultuous week with hearings on Capitol Hill, a highly awaiting trade ruling by the Department of Commerce and intense debate across Europe, we thought we'd spend the day wrestling up some of the other developments that could bear fruit once the clouds pass. Clck headline to read more--
Namibia's 'green sector' - renewable energy and environmentally friendly initiatives - has received a scolding from President Hifikepunye Pohamba for failing to maximise its potential and to create jobs.President Hifikepunye Pohamba, stopping short of describing the attitude in the sector as apathetic, said employment levels in the green sector of the economy could be higher if it were not for the current "business-as-usual" approach. The remarks come two weeks before the United Nations (UN) conference on sustainable development in Brazil, where Namibia will be bidding to host the UN Green Climate Fund Secretariat. "It is incumbent upon Namibians to debunk the myth that environmental management hinders development by positioning the sector as a major contributor to job creation and the fight against poverty," said Pohamba calling for increased investments in the sector. Click headline to read more--
Morocco's ambitious and expensive plan to draw 40 percent of its energy needs from the limitless power of its blazing sun by 2020 received a publicity boost this week as the first solar powered plane to make an intercontinental flight landed in the North African kingdom. As Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard stepped out of the fragile craft in front of reporters late Tuesday following his 20-hour flight from Madrid, he immediately paid tribute to Morocco's solar ambitions, which include one day exporting electricity to Europe. "We came here out of admiration for Morocco's pioneering solar energy program," Piccard said, flashing a brilliant smile and hugging members of his team on the tarmac. Just moments earlier, the Solar Impulse had swept silently out of the darkness to glide onto the runway. Its four battery-powered turbo-props were already still, showing off the aircraft's ability to fly even when the sun is gone. "It was perhaps the most beautiful flight of my life. I have dreamed since I was a child of flying without using fuel," said Piccard, who hails from a family of adventurers and who already has circumnavigated the world by balloon. Click headline to read more--
Major new supporters, including Republican strategist Karl Rove, emerged for the campaign to keep U.S. wind energy growing by extending a critical Production Tax Credit (PTC), as the global wind industry's largest annual gathering, WINDPOWER, entered its fourth and final day today in Atlanta. Microsoft and Sprint delivered a new letter to Congressional leadership asking for an extension of the PTC. Microsoft and Sprint are the largest "wind customer" companies to endorse the campaign, ranking 37th and 90th, respectively, in the Fortune 500, with combined annual revenues of over $100 billion. They join 15 other major U.S. companies and consumer brands, including Starbucks, Nike, Campbell 's Soup, Staples, Yahoo!, and Hewlett-Packard, who have committed to purchasing more renewable energy, and endorse the PTC extension. And Tuesday, Karl Rove endorsed a PTC extension along with Robert Gibbs, a former spokesman for President Obama in a lively discussion during a general assembly appearance before an audience of thousands. Click headline to read more--
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